Resumen de Analysis of the performance of first year students in calculus
S. Mugisha, Emile Franc Doungmo Goufo, L.D. Mogari
Assessment scores of students in mathematics in an Open Distant Learning setting have not always been impressive. In this paperan exploratory study into the assessment of students’ performance in the first year Calculus module is being conducted using pastexamination scripts between 2006 and 2009. The study, done at the University of South Africa (UNISA), re-assesses the work donein the end-of-year examination, by both looking at the distribution of marks awarded and assigning new scores based on anassessment rubric adapted for the problem at hand. By using the rubric scores, further assessment of students of qualitativedimensions is possible which can serve as feedback for the module lecturer. They include assessing the relative importance ofstudents’ understanding of a problem, recognizing what was wanted, as well as formulating a solution strategy; implementing thestrategy, hesitating, and displaying ingenuity in the solution of Calculus problems. In the process, we use the techniques of splittingthe measuring instrument to estimate a reliability coefficient (Conbach’s alpha coefficient, Rulon’s split half reliability coefficientand Spearman-Brown split half reliability coefficient) on the basis of two halves and we provide a mean score showing a perfectunderstanding and proved that it is possible to standardize it by normalizing to 25, so as to facilitate comparisons with earlieraverages.
